MLB '09 Details Emerge

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New Franchise info released for popular baseball series.

By Jeff Haynes

If you're a baseball fan, you've probably exhausted every aspect of last year's baseball franchise modes and are eagerly awaiting the start of spring training. But if you wanted more control over your club's roster, look no further than MLB '09: The Show, which will expand on the Franchise mode significantly. According to a blog post by Kolbe Launchbaugh, Senior Designer of MLB '09, on PlayStation.Blog, the design team spent a lot of time making sure that they would "blow out the personnel aspects of the Franchise experience." As a result, spring training rosters will carry the full 40 man rosters, which will mean that players will need to pay attention to make sure that rookies and development prospects get their playing time to develop into new stars.

Players will also need to worry about assignments, waiver transactions, Minor League options and other elements of the roster during the regular season, as well as participating in the Amateur Draft and making supplemental picks during June. During each September of a season, rosters expand so players can make decisions on who get's the call and who doesn't for a club, as well as managing playoff rosters, since you can only replace players between series. Even the offseason appears to be much more in depth, including everything from offering arbitration to eligible players to focusing on the Rule 5 Draft. Apparently, according to Launchbaugh, this depth hasn't been limited solely to Franchise mode, because this will also be found within Season and Road To The Show. MLB '09: The Show will be released for all Sony systems on March 3.